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Author Topic: British Entertainer Rolf Harris Arrested in Sexual Offense Inquiry  (Read 2150 times)
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MuffyBee
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« on: April 19, 2013, 10:15:57 PM »

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/world/europe/british-police-arrest-entertainer-in-abuse-inquiry.html
British Police Arrest Entertainer in Sexual Offense Inquiry
April 19, 2013

LONDON — One of the country’s best-known television entertainers, Rolf Harris — for whom Queen Elizabeth II once sat for a portrait — has been arrested on suspicion of unspecified sexual offenses in the latest twist in the sexual abuse scandal that has shaken Britain’s public broadcaster, British news reports said Friday.

Mr. Harris, 83, was arrested on March 28, but only identified by name on Friday by The Sun newspaper. The BBC followed suit, having previously refrained from identifying him for what the broadcaster called “legal reasons.” The BBC said Friday that the entertainer had not been formally charged with an offense.

He was arrested as part of Operation Yewtree, an investigation the police opened last year after hundreds of accusations of sexual abuse against Jimmy Savile, a onetime disc jockey and television personality who died in 2011 at the age of 84. Some accusations involved Mr. Savile as well as other suspects, and investigators also examined accusations of “others” acting on their own. Mr. Harris fell into that last group.

Like Mr. Savile, Mr. Harris had been known to successive generations of Britons and Australians as an affable, if quirky, national treasure, a fixture on television and entertainment shows who played on his Australian roots and his skills as an artist and musician.

Bearded, bespectacled and slightly breathless in his presentation, Mr. Harris’s performances ranged from quick-fire sketches to music-making with instruments, like the tubular didgeridoo, from the Australian outback. He worked for many years on BBC programs but started his latest show on the commercial Channel 5 in 2012.
 ::snipping2::
A police statement on March 28, two days before Mr. Harris’s 83rd birthday, said: “An 82-year-old man from Berkshire was arrested by officers on Operation Yewtree on suspicion of sexual offenses.

“He has been bailed to a date in May pending further inquiries. The individual falls under the strand of the investigation we have termed ‘others.’”

An Australian who moved to Britain in 1952, Mr. Harris made his name decades ago with humorous and sentimental songs, like “Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport,” “Jake the Peg,” and “Two Little Boys,” a song composed in 1902 about childhood friends who later became soldiers in the American Civil War.

In 2005 he unveiled his portrait of the queen at Buckingham Palace as she approached her 80th birthday, showing her smiling, silver-haired and dressed in a turquoise-green jacket.
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MuffyBee
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« Reply #1 on: June 02, 2014, 11:13:06 AM »

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-27663966
Rolf Harris testimony 'contradicted' by video evidence
June 2, 2014

The jury at the trial of Rolf Harris has seen video footage that prosecutors say contradicts his claim he could not have been at the location of one of his alleged assaults.

The footage, from ITV game show Star Games, was filmed in Cambridge in 1978.

Earlier in his evidence, the entertainer denied ever having visited Cambridge until four years ago for an exhibition of his paintings.

Mr Harris, 84, denies 12 indecent assaults between 1968 and 1986.
Prosecutor Sasha Wass QC suggested he was "telling a deliberate lie".

Ms Wass said one of the complainants had been working as a waitress after a games show event in Cambridge.

The complainant told the jury she had been indecently assaulted there by Mr Harris at around the time she was aged 14 in 1975.

Ms Wass said the video supported "pretty much everything" the complainant had said, apart from the date of the alleged incident.

"She's got the year wrong," said Ms Wass.

The video, a short extract of which was shown to the jury at Southwark Crown Court, started with the Thames TV opening logo.

The programme titles showed Mr Harris in a tracksuit top and white shorts. The show featured him as a team captain.

Mr Harris said he didn't remember going to Cambridge. He said to Ms Wass: "I don't think you understand the showbiz scene at all.

"You sign a contract, you are taken to a place."

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« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2014, 12:03:41 PM »

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-28094561
Rolf Harris guilty of indecent assaults
June 30, 2014

Veteran entertainer Rolf Harris has been found guilty of 12 counts of indecently assaulting four girls in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

One of the victims was a childhood friend of his daughter, while another was aged seven or eight.

The court heard Harris, 84, was a "Jekyll and Hyde" character, who had a dark side to his personality.

Prosecutors said he used his "status and position" to abuse his victims. He will be sentenced on Friday.

The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, said a custodial term was "uppermost in the court's mind", but he wanted to see a medical report before sentencing.

Harris, who was granted bail, faced a mass of photographers and reporters as he left court in the company of his wife Alwen and daughter Bindi, who had both attended most of the trial at Southwark Crown Court.

The central prosecution allegation concerned a friend of Harris's daughter, whom the court heard he groomed and molested from the age of 13 until she was 19.

Rolf Harris police mugshot
The Metropolitan Police have issued a photograph of Harris taken after his arrest
The other victims told the court they were touched or groped by Harris, sometimes at his public appearances.

The jury deliberated for 37 hours and 45 minutes before reaching their unanimous verdicts.

Harris was found guilty of all 12 charges he was prosecuted on. They were:

*Count one: A woman said Harris touched her inappropriately when she was just seven or eight while he was signing autographs in Hampshire in the late 1960s

*Count two: Harris was accused of groping a teenage waitress's bottom at a charity event in Cambridge in the 1970s

*Counts three to nine: A childhood friend of Mr Harris' daughter said he repeatedly indecently assaulted her between the ages of 13 and 19, including once when his daughter was asleep in the same room. He admitted a relationship with the woman, but said it began after she turned 18

*Counts 10 to 12: Australian woman Tonya Lee, who has waived her right to anonymity, said he fondled her three times on one day while she was on a theatre group trip to the UK at the age of 15.

Six other women also told the court about indecent assaults Harris had carried out against them in Australia, New Zealand and Malta. The entertainer was not prosecuted over those incidents but the evidence was introduced by the prosecution as an added illustration of his behaviour.
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  " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."  - Daniel Moynihan
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